Master Georgie Part 8

I glean all this from Potter, who has pestered a Captain Frampton for information. We are apparently sat between Sir Richard England's division and General Buller's brigade. The 21st, under Sir George Cathcart - we haven't yet set eyes on him - is mainly engaged in manning the trenches. Should Lord Raglan be forced to call for reinforcements to defend Mount Inkerman, we'd have to march two and a half miles across country. I say we we, though I don't intend to budge.

From our ridge there is a view of the ravine and the Post road which winds towards Sebastopol. Weather permitting and with a fair amount of squinting I can make out the extremities of the harbour, slashed by the masts of ships and the stretch of water that Potter refers to as 'the Gateway to the Mediterranean'. That bleak gap is apparently the reason for all this misery. As sea and sky are the same ashen shade of grey it is difficult to think of it leading anywhere upon which the sun might shine.

Potter has become something of an expert on military strategy. He spends hours scratching arrows in the mud, indicating possible sorties from the enemy. George doesn't like it; whenever he catches him he pretends he hasn't seen the marks and smears them under his boot. The other afternoon, following an obliteration, Potter cried out, 'Likeness is none between us, but we go to the self-same end.' George strode off looking thunderous.

Each morning, at first light, two squads of picquets march out to relieve those of the night watch. A picquet is composed of an entire company, and as the casualties increase, often the poor devils stay in their mud-filled trenches in excess of forty-eight hours. They return, some still clothed in their once bright summer uniforms - now turned the colour of old beetroot - dragging their feet and with faces old as time. There is little difference between the living and the dead, save that the latter come back on litters.

The din goes on day and night, though at some distance. I've got used to it. Nor do I start back in fear any more when the grey horizon flashes with violet light and throws up fiery plumes. Often the smoke a.s.sumes the shapes of ghostly ridges which tremble for a while, turn pink, then melt into the sullen sky. I've seen a dwarf oak catch fire and blaze in the night like Moses's burning bush. The explosions throw up stones which, falling, rearrange themselves in burial mounds.

I intend to survive. I consulted Potter and he agreed with me that a man, so long as he keeps concentration, can will himself into staying alive. I'm not like those other wretched examples of my cla.s.s who come from nothing, and who, should they escape the slaughter, are doomed to return to the same oblivion, and be broken men into the bargain.

I have it planned out. I shall rise in my profession, wed a good woman without airs or graces, and grow old surrounded by my children. I don't hanker to be over-rich, just comfortable. None of my offspring, G.o.d willing, will ever beg for bread as I once did.

With this in mind, and the photographer having found himself a billet outside the camp, I've taken to sleeping in the van, to be out of the damp. I claim it as my own vehicle, seeing it was me who purchased it, the Punch and Judy man having died and gone to his maker. It was also my idea to put in tinted windows and build shelves, though I regret painting the outside white as it can be seen for miles and often draws fire. It's cramped, and at nightfall I turf some of the chemicals outside, which wouldn't please my employer if he came back unexpected. If he does, I'm all set to ask him whether he wants a live a.s.sistant or a dead one, the condition of the tents being guaranteed to shove one into the grave. Supplies can't get through owing to the constant barrage from the Russian guns; there is only one blanket apiece and that so encrusted with slime from the waterlogged earth as to be useless. The men who doze within such musty shelters pile together for warmth, stirring and jostling like a litter of pigs.

Potter and Myrtle have moved inside the hospital tent with George, though that has become no better than a char-nel house. Not a day goes by without its quota of wounded. One night, in the s.p.a.ce of three hours, ten men were brought in, felled by a howitzer sh.e.l.l. Of these, seven had already lost either an arm or a leg and the remaining three required amputations.

At first Dr Potter used to go outside when George began his sawing. Now he stays put by the stove, pretending to be absorbed in one of his mildewed books.

There's no telling who will live and who will not. A man can have his limbs torn off, the blood draining out of him like a leaking barrel, and recover; another can stumble in with no more than a flesh wound to the groin and snuff it within twenty-four hours. Those whose stomachs have been ploughed up, their innards dangling like pale links of pork, fare the worst. Neither will-power nor medicine can heal them.

They carried in a drummer boy a few nights back. He was not above twelve years of age and had been put to work in the trenches, there being so many casualties. In the act of shovelling up dirt, body bent and his right hand holding the handle of the spade, he was struck by a round shot which pa.s.sed between his legs, laid bare an artery and ripped off his c.o.c.k and s.c.r.o.t.u.m. They hadn't been able to bring him in right away owing to the ambulance wagon getting stuck in the mud. He was put on the table, where he jerked like a fish on the hook. Myrtle didn't go near him. Potter says she's a devoted mother, but I suspect her children function as a cord to bind her more tightly to George.

Nothing could be done for the drummer boy. George told me to administer chloroform. I've taken to helping in this way, and am glad to be of use. If you know they're asleep and you see their faces smooth out, your belly stops heaving. I held the pad over the lad's face for a long time, so that he never woke again, not in this world. The chloroform smells fruity, a touch like strawberries, which is pleasant since we all stink, Potter more than most.

I've reminded George of the time he and William Rimmer had me go into the cage with the ape, and how he'd been drunk as a lord on the journey home to Blackberry Lane. I reckon memory is selective because he held it was me who was inebriated, as proved by the way I'd stretched out in the sand while he was conversing with the fisher of eels. He didn't like my mentioning Rimmer; I could tell that from the way his eyelids fluttered.

Stung, I said, 'Rimmer was c.o.c.k-a-hoop that day. He wanted to take all the credit.'

George said, 'I haven't your memory,' and turned his back on me.

I tried to get Potter to discuss what it meant when events were recollected differently. He said he wasn't in the mood and had enough lapses of his own without fretting over other people's. Often he talks to his wife Beatrice, which disturbs George. He fears Potter is going out of his mind. I detect no evidence of it, and besides, things being the way they are, removing oneself from the present, by whatever ruse, seems a sensible enough way of keeping cheerful. I try to think of someone I could conjure up should it become necessary, but there's no one. My mother's face got wiped clean in the long gone past.

When the drummer boy was laid down, Potter started mumbling aloud from one of his books. I shall follow his example and read when I get old. He himself once said I was half-way to being a scholar, seeing that the action of the camera goes some distance towards capturing the mystery of human conduct.

Before they buried the drummer boy I stripped him of his uniform and encouraged Myrtle to wear it. Her dress was too thin for the winter and in any case much bedraggled. She refused outright, but I got George to persuade her, and now she wears a jacket and breeches. She didn't even have to wash them, the blood having been rinsed off by the rain. All that was needed was a patch - in this case, a square of red petticoat - to cover the holes torn in the trousers. She looks well in such clothes and I would like to take her portrait, only it pours all the time and the plates would get splattered.

Most nights, when there's a lull in the hacking and suturing, we huddle round the stove. There are usually five of us. I've chummed up with an elderly man called Charles White. He hails from Ireland and is good-humoured. Starting out poor, he made a fortune out of brick fields but was later ruined owning to a failure of the bank. Unused to penury, his wife faded away and now lies in a pauper's grave. He himself, until war was declared and he volunteered for military service, was incarcerated in the debtors' underground prison in Clerkenwell. In spite of this he jokes a good deal. He has a ginger moustache and walks with his feet splayed out. George finds him amusing and has successfully reduced a swelling of the ankles caused by his former shackling.

White was telling one of his tall tales when a soldier bounded in with his ear blown off. There was any amount of blood but he wouldn't let George see to him. He kept shaking our hands in turn and saying how happy he was to meet us. His name was Harry St Claire, a name he recited over and over, as though it had value. He said losing his ear was the best thing that had ever happened to him. White thought this meant he was under the delusion that he would now be sent home, and a.s.sured him that he'd be back on duty within two days, at which the poor wretch cried out, 'Capital, capital,' and did another round of handshaking, the blood flying in all directions as he pumped.

His story was a strange one, and being educated he told it well. Some months before, as yet he was not sure how many, he had been a pupil at a school of high repute in the south of England. As clear as he could remember - there was a blue sky and the college cat was stalking the bushes -he had taken umbrage over a fellow of his own age speaking disrespectfully of his mother, a widow woman recently keeping company with a t.i.tled gentleman. Mad to defend his mother's honour, he had challenged the youth to fisticuffs beneath the chestnut trees at the boundary of the playing fields. It went badly for him. In his head he'd retained an image of the cat, the sunlight shivering across its brindled fur; that and the sparkles of his own sweat darkening the hairs on his arm. Then the blackness descended.

Weeks later, he had found himself enlisted and on a ship bound for Malta. He hadn't the slightest idea of who he was or where he had come from. When required to give his name he had said he didn't know it, at which he had been written down as Private Knowlitt. This tickled Charles White, who laughed himself into a fit of coughing.

An hour ago, marching back from picquet duty, a sh.e.l.l had landed in the rear of the column and an iron fragment had sliced off Knowlitt's ear. At the moment of impact - he had dived through the air like a swimmer - he had remembered his name and his former life. 'I am Harry St Claire,' he had called out, and now repeated the information, adding, 'I am the happiest man alive.'

Suddenly, his face whitened. From outside, like the beating of wings, came the dull clapping of the guns. He stared into the distance, his eyes grown huge. Then he dropped dead. George said it was due to exhaustion, that and blood loss.

Myrtle took it hard. She sat with her knees splayed wide, hands held in front of her, tapping the air with invisible sticks, as though the drummer boy had come back to claim his soul. Potter curled up on his stool, hands covering his ears.

White and I slung Knowlitt between our shoulders and dragged him outside. His dead man's boots slurped through the mud. A fearful detonation cracked the darkness, followed by a flash of sickly light, exposing for an instant the tin glitter of the river below and the slopes sluiced with rain. The world was drowning.

I didn't go back to George. Instead, I tumbled into the van and got at the photographer's reserves of Bulgarian wine.

I woke early, the drink having dragged me awake with a dry mouth. I had a cloudy memory of keeping company with a corporal of the 55th with a boil on his neck. He had been willing to swap a watch for a pigskin valise. The watch had gone and there was no sign of the valise, which brought me out of my stupor with a vengeance. I had a small heap of trophies plucked from corpses, wrapped in a cloth and stuffed behind the developing trays. My conscience doesn't trouble me. The enemy rifle the bodies after an engagement and I reckon I'm doing our dead a service by keeping their possessions out of foreign hands. I stepped down into a fog as thick as wool. The customary stand-to had begun, but though I could hear the shouted orders and the whinnying of horses, it was impossible to see anything. If I stretched out my arm and held up my hand, my fingers vanished. I was caught in a white bale of mist, through which I heard the solemn ringing of church bells. I reckoned the sound drifted up from Sebastopol and that I had woken on a saint's day, either that or it was Sunday. Stumbling forwards, I came across a lumpen form slumped before a ghostly leap of flame. It was Potter, swaddled in his greatcoat at the fire, waiting for the pot to simmer. I tapped his shoulder and said, 'Just listen to those bells.'

He said, 'You hear them too? I thought they were in my head. I woke dreaming of my wedding day. Beatrice had a speck of soot on the edge of her veil -'

'Dear me,' I said. 'She wouldn't take too kindly to that.' 'Was it the bells that caused the dream,' he pondered, 'or had the dream already begun and I merely incorporated the sound?'

I said I would have to leave that question unanswered.

'I presume you were never married,' he probed. 'You not being the marrying sort.'

I told him he presumed rightly, but that I'd lived for two years with a widow woman, until the drink had bloated her out and scuttled my desire.

'You surprise me,' he said.

'I surprise myself,' I countered, and asked after Myrtle.

'She cried herself into sleep, and must now be her old self.'

'Hardly old,' I corrected.

He agreed I had a point, and fell silent. I thought that was the end of it, but he presently asked, 'What was it that George did all those years ago...to make her love him?'

'Did?' I said. I felt uncomfortable, love not being a word I care to bounce about. I told him he should ask George, not me.

'He won't remember,' Potter said. 'It's not as if he's a man swayed by emotion.'

It hit rne that he wasn't as clever as I'd believed; either that or his old books had finally clamped him tight between their pages. I know about men, and knew George to be softer than most. He could cry like a woman at the mention of his mother.

I said, 'Possibly he told her where she came from.'

'Would that be enough?' He sounded unconvinced. His face kept slipping in and out of the mist.

'What more would be needed?' I asked. 'It's useful to know one's beginnings.'

'There are more urgent things to contemplate,' he muttered, 'one's end for instance,' and the water having come to the boil, made tea. We drank it to the clump of boots as the fatigue detail set off on the dawn search for wood and water. Close by, a horse p.i.s.sed, its splatterings diminishing as it trotted on.

'These are times in which the truth should be told,' Potter announced portentously. 'Do you not think so, Pompey Jones?'

'What truth would that be?' I asked. His face had vanished again.

'In this case,' he said, 'I'm speaking of pictures.'

I thought he meant photographs, and told him straight that I couldn't see eye to eye with him. 'Some pictures,' I confided, 'would only cause alarm to ordinary folk.' I was thinking of the studies of exit wounds taken for the College of Surgeons.

'I had in mind,' he said, 'a view of ships in the Mersey, seen from the hill on which the Washington Hotel now stands.'

He had me utterly confused. Perhaps, after all, George had been in the right of it when he'd held that Potter was leaving his mind.

'You may remember it hung on the wall in the study,' he continued. It was moved some weeks before you were barred from the house.'

It was true I'd been banned from visiting Blackberry Lane, though that hadn't stopped George from seeing me. One night he'd sent a note to my lodgings asking me to meet him on the north side of the Washington Hotel. I'd had every intention of complying, but when I strode down the hill I'd glimpsed yellow flames rolling through the sky above the river. When I reached the Custom House, the blazing sails of ships skimmed like kites across the crimson waters, and it hurt to breathe. Even at this distance in time I recalled the howl of the fire as it hurtled towards the stars. When the tobacco warehouse collapsed and the sparks sprayed out in ostrich feathers, the crowd had burst out cheering. It wasn't just the conflagration that had prevented me from keeping my appointment with George - it rankled that he'd stipulated the kitchen entrance rather than the front steps of the hotel. I was finished with being consigned to the shadows. Next morning he was waiting for me by the pump in my street. He'd given me one of his old cameras which I sold later that day for sixteen shillings, as I had a better one of my own.

Potter said, 'First it was positioned above the desk. You may recollect a blue vase with a fluted neck that stood below it. Then it was found askew on the wall to the right of the door.'

Flummoxed, I uttered not a word.

'I stayed up two nights...in an effort to solve the mystery. I was not then a man used to going without sleep. In the scale of things it is of small importance, yet I would be grateful for an explanation.'

'I can't help you,' I said, and left him.

Once inside the van I set about smartening the shelves in case the photographer returned. Though I had been careful in my handling of the gla.s.s plates and the positives, the numerous bottles were in a jumble and the trays not sufficiently clean. The thief who had sat with me the night before had slopped drink on to the work bench. After storing the chemicals in a more orderly fashion I inspected the cameras, of which there were three, one being for portraits and fitted with a Ross three-inch lens, the others of the bellows construction and made by Bourquien of Paris.

Two of the prints were all my own work and I considered them pretty fair examples of the photographer's art. The first was a study of a heap of amputated limbs; arrayed against a white background, they had the gravity of a still-life. I was pleased with the tuft of gra.s.s spraying up from a clenched fist. The second was of the funeral ceremony held in the region we had recently quitted. Removing this second print from its waxed wrappings I examined it for fading. It was acute, the white vestments of the chaplain and the winding cloths of the dead standing out against the stony landscape. Possibly there was a little blurring in the left-hand corner, but it was scarcely noticeable.

And then, even as I looked, it became so, and gradually a.s.sumed the shape of a woman. The more I stared, the clearer it grew, until I couldn't think why I hadn't seen it in the first place. It puzzled me, for we weren't encouraged to have women in the pictures, not unless they were ladies, and we hadn't any of those, and besides, it was thought that people back home don't like to see the weaker s.e.x in such grim surroundings. I was certain there had been only three women present, one being Myrtle, and all had been grouped well to the rear of the camera. The shape was bulky, matronly; bonnet-strings hung down quite clearly and one hand appeared raised, either waving or beckoning.

I stood there, trying to make sense of it, when an uproar began outside. I opened the doors and the noise of bellowed commands and the tooting of bugles rushed in with the fog. Someone called my name, and peering, I made out the outline of a boy standing there. When the figure came closer I saw it was Myrtle.

'What's up?' I asked.

'George needs you,' she said. 'There's been orders to march.'

I tried to persuade her inside the van, to be out of the way of the unseen horses and the invisible soldiery running to stand-to. She wouldn't, protesting it would remind her too much of old Mr Hardy. I thought it was other things she was loath to remember, like the dreams she'd once had of George forsaking all others, so I stepped down into the swirling day and followed her to the hospital tent.

Potter was there, helping to carry medical boxes to the ambulance wagons, of which there were two, one being nothing more than a bullock cart. The talk was that Prince Mentschikoff had launched a surprise attack on the 2nd division and we were required to give support. The bells earlier that morning had tolled to spur on the Russian battalions swarming out of Sebastopol. The strength of the enemy force was rumoured to be immense. Some said that as many as forty thousand men were on the advance.

George started on me at once, issuing orders and telling me to look sharp. I was annoyed, for I was present in a civilian capacity and had neither wish nor obligation to enter the firing line. I told myself I'd go with him a short way and then double back, and later make the fog my excuse.

As it happened, there was only one driver, a bandsman, who could be spared to take charge of the ambulance wagon, George himself having made up his mind to go on ahead to find a suitable place to set up a field hospital. Imperiously, he directed me to the bullock cart - Potter being useless in such matters - and, instrument bag propped before him in the saddle, rode off before I had time to protest.

It took time to get on our way, what with the confusion and the lack of visibility. When finally we were ready Myrtle clambered up beside me. Potter couldn't find his horse; instead, he hung a lantern on the back of the cart and said he would walk behind. Now we could hear the rumble of the heavy guns, theirs and ours, and closer, the staccato snap of musket fire coming from the slopes above the ravine.

Our progress was slow and lurching. The planks of wood laid down by the picquets had mostly been torn up to be used for firewood, and those that remained had long since sunk into the mud. In places the oak bushes grew thickly, impeding the wooden wheels of the cart. At intervals the mist cleared and the grey columns of marching men could be seen slipping and sliding through the grey daylight.

Myrtle was trembling. I told her not to be afraid, and she retorted angrily that it was cold not fear that made her teeth rattle. Occasionally she shouted out to see if Potter was keeping up, and for perhaps an hour we heard his called response. Then he didn't answer any more, and I reckoned he'd turned back or else lost his way.

Frequently, Myrtle urged me to go faster, and even leaned dangerously forwards, pummelling her feather fists against the rump of the stumbling horse in a vain attempt to make it speedier. She wanted to find George. I wasn't against it, for now I reckoned the h.e.l.l that awaited was in some degree preferable to the one left behind; at least I wouldn't be alone.

I tried to make an adventure of it, pretending I was a child again, sneaking through Ince Woods hoping to snare rabbits, but the trees were too small and the frantic crack of the guns blew away the black crows of my boyhood.

Once, when the fog shifted to reveal a fountain of flame spurting upon the horizon, I conjured up the sunset spreading across the sky beyond the humpbacked bridge, and in the puffs of gory smoke belching along the rise imagined I glimpsed the eucalyptus leaves quivering above the stream.

Dreaming thus, suddenly there came a crackling and tearing of undergrowth somewhere to our right, and there burst into view a triangle of men in greatcoats and bearskins, rifles held at the hip, bayonets fixed. Then broke out a clamour of such ferocity that my eyes started in my head. I thought it was all up with me, for above the frenzied grunting and shouting and caterwauling came the whine of shot. The cart trundled on, the horse straining and panting to be out of the din.

It was over in less than a minute and we were through it, unharmed, and it grew quiet again, as though a door had slammed shut. It might have been a dream, but for the bodies lying all around. When I turned to look back I saw one of our Fusiliers sitting upright in the mud, eyes wide open and the top of his head sliced off like he was a breakfast egg. Behind him stood a Russian holding a pistol at arm's length; it was aimed at my heart. Even as his finger tightened on the trigger the cart lurched sideways and toppled over, flinging me into the bushes. Miraculously, Myrtle fell alongside.

After what seemed like hours I lifted my head and peered through the fretwork of branches. The seated soldier had fallen on to his back and the Russian had gone. Then the firing and the shouting began again, but this time at a distance. My lids were clamped shut but still the detonations flashed behind my eyes.

I stretched out and pulled Myrtle close. Quiet as a mouse she curled against me. Her cap had come off and her hair, stiff with dirt, spiked my cheek. I didn't succeed in penetrating her. She let me stroke her cleft but bridled when I attempted greater intimacies. I didn't persist, it not being a matter of importance. All I'd ever wanted, as regards Myrtle, was the recognition that she and I were of a kind, seeing that fate had tumbled the two of us into Master Georgie's path.

After a while I stood and tugged her upright. Magpies swooped about our heads. The mist had all but cleared and drizzle spattered the ground. The horse lay on its side, haunches pinned down by the cart. It was still alive though I suspected both its hind legs were broken. I loosened the fingers of the dead fusilier and took up his rifle. When I placed the muzzle against the animal's forehead Myrtle turned away. The gun didn't go off; possibly the powder was wet. Searching through the other corpses I chanced on a revolver and dispatched the horse without further delay. I decided to keep the rifle too, for its bayonet was in place and I reckoned that in close combat steel was superior to lead.

A dozen or more Russians were spilled round the cart. I opened the coat of one to see if there was anything of value inside, but Myrtle was watching me, so I tugged it off altogether and struggled into its folds. There was a leathery smell and the homely odour of sweat. For good measure I jerked free the metal canister that hung at his belt and downed his vodka ration in one swallow. For the first time that day the blood ran warm in my veins. I would have worn his bearskin too if I hadn't feared I might be mistaken for the enemy.

What to do next - that was the puzzle. For all I knew the Russians were in the rear as well as ahead. From the ridge a mile distant came the roar of cannons and the pitter-pat of musket fire. There was nothing to see from the top of the rise save for the sky burning red in patches. The fog still rolled across the valley, covering the road and the stone barrier. Beyond the unseen river, steep walls of rock jutted out of the mist and soared sheer to the ruins of Inkerman.

Myrtle settled it. She said, 'I'm going on. I have to find Georgie.'

I said, 1 doubt you'll ever find him.'

She shook her head stubbornly. 'I will...I must.'

'He's probably dead by now,' I told her.

At this she fairly trembled with pa.s.sion. 'He's not,' she ground out. 'I know he's not.'

Dollops of mud had dried across her face, lending her skin a ghastly pallor - yet her eyes glittered, as if she was greedy for something.

It was a grisly walk we took, by-stepping dead men and bits of men. There were wounded horses, heads lowered, standing with the blood leaking out of their bellies. I would have used the revolver if I hadn't felt it would be a f.e.c.kless waste of ammunition. Once, we heard a groan and running in that direction came across a middle-aged man in the uniform of the Rifle Brigade. He lay on his back, hands clasped together as though in prayer, spectacles still balanced on his nose. There wasn't a mark on him, save that the gla.s.s at his right eye was fractured into a spider's web. He groaned again and I knelt and lifted his head, and at that precise moment his throat gave forth a death rattle. I withdrew my hand and it was sticky with b.l.o.o.d.y pulp. I wiped my fingers on his trousers and hurried on.

I left Myrtle in the siege camp below the ravine. I would have skulked there in her shadow if an officer hadn't come up and, taking me for a soldier, what with my greatcoat and rifle, ordered me to refill my ammunition pouch and proceed towards the Sandbag Battery. I had no notion of where that might be, but the drink had made me compliant. I gathered it was almost midday; I hadn't eaten since six o'clock the evening before, and that only bread gone mouldy with the damp.

I fell in with a column of the 4th division and duly marched off, watching torpedoes of fire blazing through the misty heavens, a silly smile on my face.

We toiled in an easterly direction towards a spur of rock encircled by a wall some ten foot high, erected from stones and fortified by burst sandbags. It had been fashioned in the hopes of trundling up heavy artillery, but was in fact empty. Quite why it was deemed necessary to defend such a nothing place was never explained. Our ascent along sheep tracks was enlivened by the whistle of sh.e.l.ls streaking down from the Russian batteries, and had us bounding and weaving like hares.

Shortly, we were pounced on by Russians looming up in looking-gla.s.s reflections of ourselves, eyes dilated with horror, bearskins bristling like brushwood. It was hand to hand encounters and my bayonet proved its worth. After that first sickening thrust into flesh and muscle -1 swear the steel conducted a discharge of agony - it became ordinary, commonplace, to pierce a man through the guts. I didn't look at faces, into fear-filled eyes, only at the width of the cloth protecting the fragile organs from the daggers of death.

I witnessed an extraordinary happening, a confrontation between an officer of the 21st and his equal on the enemy side. They went to it with swords, circling each other, apes on the prowl. At which their men, of both sides, formed a ragged ring about them, cheering and uttering oaths.

I stood at the back, watching the cut and thrust of their dance of death. When they fell, each mortally wounded, the circle broke up and hacked away with a vengeance.

I engaged with a boy with a pimple at the corner of his mouth. He was clumsy with terror, flicking at me with his bayonet as though warding off bees. He shouted something in a foreign tongue, and I said I was sorry but I didn't understand. I wanted to spare him, but he caught me a slash on my brow which got me cross and I jabbed him in the throat. He fell away, gurgling his reproach.

I didn't know what cause I was promoting, or why it was imperative to kill, though I reckon Potter could have told me.

The carnage was horrid. Men died posed like the statues in Mr Blundell's gla.s.s-house. I saw a horse crumpled on its chest, its rider with his arm held up as though he breasted a river. I saw two men on their knees, facing one another, propped up by the pat-a-cake thrust of their hands. On the wall, stuck to the steps of a ladder, a grenadier clutched at the steel that pinned him like a b.u.t.terfly.

Soon an officer charged up on his horse and ordered us to retreat from the Battery to defend the Regimental Colours. In my head I questioned the necessity of coming to the aid of a tattered square of silk, but did as I was bid. I'd turned into a circus animal and would have jumped through hoops if called upon. As we ran down the slope the smoke from the guns whirled about us as though a giant kettle was on the boil.